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{{For, the grass moth genus, Pyrausta (moth) Pyrausta or pyrallis (πυραλλίς) (also called in Greek pyrigonos) is a
mythological Myth is a folklore genre consisting of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not objectively true, the identification of a narrat ...
insect from
Cyprus Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is ...
. It is a four-legged insect with filmy wings. It lived in the fire like a
salamander Salamanders are a group of amphibians typically characterized by their lizard-like appearance, with slender bodies, blunt snouts, short limbs projecting at right angles to the body, and the presence of a tail in both larvae and adults. All ten ...
and died if it went away from the fire. Janssens identifies it with the Melanophila acuminata.


See also

* Salamanders in folklore *
Dragons in Greek mythology Dragons play a significant role in Greek mythology. Though the Greek ''drakōn'' often differs from the modern Western conception of a dragon, it is both the etymological origin of the modern term and the source of many surviving Indo-European m ...


References

* The Natural History of
Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/2479), called Pliny the Elder (), was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic ...

Book 11, Chapter 42
; the Latin text reads ''pyral(l)is'' and either ''pyrausta'' or ''pyrotocon''. * Aelian, ''On the nature of animals'' 2, 2 : ''pyrigonos''. * Em. Janssens, "Le « pyrotocon » de Pline l'Ancien", ''Latomus'', 9, fasc. 3 (juillet-septembre 1950), pp. 283-286 (Société d'Études Latines de Bruxelles). Greek dragons Greek legendary creatures Mythological insects